Ceramic materials are attractive materials for high temperature applications due to their characteristic high thermal stability. However, the use of ceramic materials in high temperature structural applications has been severely limited by factors including fabrication development problems, the lack of fracture toughness that characterizes ceramic materials, and the extreme sensitivity of ceramic materials to internal flaws, surface discontinuities, and contact stresses. Conventional ceramic materials are thus prone to catastrophic failure when subjected to thermal and mechanical stresses and not at all suitable for load-bearing applications.
What is needed in this art is a ceramic material which overcomes the problems discussed above.